If you don’t love baking in the hot sun or just don’t have time to do lots of fishing during the day, you might want to try night time bass fishing.
It is a bit intimidating at first. But once you know the basics, you will be able to confidently hit the water in the dark.
During the summer months, the heat can get pretty brutal. Fishing during mid day and even the low light periods of the day can be very uncomfortable.
Once the sun has gone down for 1-2 hours, temperatures drop quite a bit and it gets much more pleasant.
The bass also prefer these cooler temperatures during the dog days of summer, and will often do most of their feeding during the night time.
Very few anglers fish during the night time. And even those that do only night fish on occasion.
So there is very little competition and fishing pressure. This can make a huge difference on very pressured lakes and ponds.
Bass will get conditioned to the day time anglers and transition more into nocturnal feeders.
Not everyone is a professional angler.
I’m sure that you reading this right now work a full time job, run a business, have school, or other things that limit the time you can go fishing.
For a lot of us, there just isn’t enough time during the day to get in a lot of fishing.
So night time bass fishing opens up a lot of doors and gives you 3-5 more hours in the day to get out on the water.
Bass are primarily going to be in two locations during the night.
First is deeper water, on the bottom. No matter what time of day it is, there are going to be lots of bass out deep.
These bass often suspend during the day time and even school up on baitfish.
But during the night, they are going to keep pretty close to the bottom.
The bottom is much safer than just drifting around blindly.
Plus, it is much easier to pin or corner prey up against the bottom than it is to chase them in open water.
Shallow banks are the perfect place for bass to spend their nights.
They are plenty protected because in shallow water, they are always close to the bottom or to some cover.
It is incredibly easy to hunt prey because they can’t escape upwards or downwards.
And finally, the little bit of moonlight creates a good amount of visibility in the shallow waters.
Speaking of the moon, there is a bit of a debate out there about which moon phase is better for night fishing.
Lots of guys say that it is the full moon phase because the moon is very bright and gives the bass lots of visibility in the water, helping them hunt and find your lures.
And other guys say that in it the new moon phase because the extra darkness helps the bass ambush prey and gives them the predatory edge.
To be honest, I don’t think you need to worry about this much. You are best off just experimenting with both and have fun.
With that being said, I have learned a simple tip from Matt Allen that will help you out.
If you are fishing in muddy water, the full moon phase will be better.
And if you are fishing in very clear water, the new moon phase will be better.
I keep my night time bass lures very simple. You don’t need every lure every made to have success.
The best approach is to use a select handful of baits and stick to them.
So I’m going to give you a couple lures for each water category, and trust me, you don’t need anything else.
Like I said earlier, bass love to stick to the bottom at night, especially in deep water.
It is easy to pin bait against the bottom, and lots of bottom dwelling creatures are much more active at night.
No matter who you ask, a big Texas rigged worm is going to be at the top of everyone’s nighttime list.
The bigger worm with the long curly tail has a substantial presence in the water. It is very easy for bass to find.
Even if the water is pitch black, the bass can feel the big worm dragging and hopping along the bottom very well.
One great addition to this is a plastic or glass bead. Thread one or two beads on your line in between the bullet weight and the hook.
These will clack around and give the worm some sound, making it even easier for bass to hone in on it.
Although they are very compact, jigs displace lots of water and have a large presence.
The thick skirt, weed guard, and flapping trailer make it very easy for bass to find.
I like the jig when fishing shallower water. The shallow water will often have laydowns, docks, rocks, and other cover that calls for a heavy weed guard.
Especially because your vision is compromised, you don’t really have an accurate picture of where you are casting the lure.
So the extra weedlessness helps a lot at night. The Arkie style jig head is the perfect style for night fishing.
It drags very well in open water, comes through cover easily, and heavy enough to give you plenty of connection to the bottom.
These are the baits that cover lots of water and draw in bass from a far distance.
Bass have no problem feeling, hearing, and seeing them even at night.
The chatterbait is without a doubt my favorite shallow water search bait.
You can fish it very slowly and just creep it along. The wobbling blade puts of tons of vibration and gives bass a slow moving target that is easy to find.
You can’t really fish a chatterbait in deeper water because the blade causes it to rise very quickly.
But in the shallow water along the banks, it doesn’t get better than a chatterbait in my opinion.
Now, crankbait is two part lure. For shallow water, a square bill crankbait is killer.
But when cover lots of water out deep, my go-to lure is a deep diving crankbait. In the shallow water, you want to crankbait diving about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way to the bottom.
And in deep water, you want the crankbait to get down all the way so that you are lightly grinding bottom or bouncing off rocks.
Crankbaits are loud, have lots of vibration, and have two treble hooks. These treble hooks are amazing for night fishing.
If the bass misses your crankbait or doesn’t fully eat it, those treble hooks will still catch somewhere on them mouth.
The only issue is that those treble hooks can be a bit dangerous when handling fish, but we’ll get more into that later.
Topwater is my favorite way to catch bass during the night and is always the first thing I try.
Bass can actually see topwater lures quite well because they silhouette against the sky very well. It is best to use these lures in shallow water.
The buzzbait is the lure that got me into night fishing. I would tie it on as the sun started going down and never take it off.
I wouldn’t even need to see it in the water because I would hear the blade splashing.
And then I would hear a bass crush it. Buzzbaits are loud, obnoxious, and get bass fired up.
A lot of guys prefer a plopper style lure, but I have always had more success with buzzbaits.
One nighttime modification is to add a trailer hook to your buzzbait.
Even though topwater lures silhouette well, they are still more difficult to locate at night, and a trailer hook will drastically improve your hook-up ratio.
Just like the buzzbait, the wake bait is a straight path lure. What I mean by this is that it swims along the surface in a straight line.
It doesn’t walk the dog and dart side to side. This is very important during the night because bass have a very difficult time eating erratic lures that zig-zag around.
A wake bait has an almost mezmorizing action and creates a large V shape behind it.
This gives bass a clear path to follow and hone in on the bait itself.
Again, you have to be careful of the treble hooks, but they do turn more bites into catches.
As a general rule of thumb, you want to use as dark of lure colors as possible.
Things like black, junebug, and black/blue are great. However, don’t feel like you are limited to those colors.
For example, a lot of guys love reds and even natural shad colors when fishing at night.
Lure colors are a bit personal and very a lot from angler to angler. But if you follow the following guidelines you will be just fine.
This is probably the most important piece of nighttime fishing equipment.
Fishing blindly is obviously not an option. And a head lamp is by far the most convenient and effective source of light.
Just strap it on your head, turn it on, and forget it’s even there.
Now, by no means is braided line necessary for fishing at night. But you do have the freedom to use it as much as you want.
Bass can’t really see much at night, so braided line going to be just about as invisible as fluorocarbon once the sun goes down.
A good pair of extra long pliers are very helpful when catching bass on treble hooks.
It can be very scary and dangerous to handle bass with a mouth full of hooks at night.
I mean, it is pretty easy to get a hook in your hand during the day, so just imagine what could happen in the dark.
Just get an extra long pair of pliers to you can keep your hands far away from the hooks.
Night time bass fishing offers several advantages, making it a great option for anglers.
The cooler temperatures are more comfortable for both fish and fishermen, while reduced competition from other anglers means less pressured fish.
For those with busy daytime schedules, night fishing provides extra time on the water.
If you haven’t done it before, try not to overthink it. Just get out there and have some fun.
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